Quick walk around. Car for sale in Denmark.
THE STORY BEHIND THIS ODD CONVERSION
NOTE: GOOGLE TRANSLATED FROM A DANISH NEWSPAPER.
The Danish tax rules say that if you buy a car on yellow plates (license plate or tags for vans), the tax is lower. Even a regular VW Golf is available on yellow plates when you peel the rear seats out.
Immediately one would think that the same rules apply to other cars. But at Customs & Tax
(the department is named SKAT. Skat is tax in Danish, ironically it also means "darling" in Danish) you do not just have to interpret the rules. They also add their own discretionary assessment of what may and may not be sold for the low fee.
Steen Bruus from the US Autocenter in Karlslunde has been made to feel on his own business several times over the years. So much so that much of his work today consists of regular battles with Customs & Tax (SKAT) on how their rules should be interpreted.
In 1987 he took a Chevrolet Camaro pickup home from Norway to see what the Danish authorities said to it. On white plates he should have 700000 kroner for the American sports car. In a yellow plate version, he could sell it for 300,000.
- We drove it to the Customs & Tax (SKAT) to find out if it could be possible to get such one approved in Denmark, but we were just about to be charged with treason. They threw us out with the message that they would never join.
- At that time we were not skilled enough to take up the fight, so we took a no for a no, says Steen Bruus, co-owner of the US Autocenter.
Pre-approved
But in 1996 there were clearer rules for how a car should be designed. Now in Karlsunde they felt it was time to try again.
- So we went to Germany and found a Camaro, which we measured up, and found that it had the right dimensions for it to be converted into a pickup within the law.
Wise of injury, they chose a slightly different approach to the Danish authorities.
- We made a very square drawing for SKAT, without saying that it was a Camaro, and they confirmed that such a car they would like to approve. Had we shown them a picture of a Camaro, they would have rejected us because it was a sports car, he thinks.
A conjecture that would later prove to be correct.
With the square drawing and Customs advance approval in hand, he traveled to the United States, where he got a company to develop the new pickup under the supervision of a technician from General Motors who builds the Camaro.
- The permit required a total weight of 2025 kg, and it required a weight increase of 75 kg, so we had to pay for completely new brake tests to get General Motors' approval. It took half a year and cost half a million dollars before it was completed, says Steen Bruus, who was in the United States several times to oversee the project.
For the sports character.
The final approval was ready in the fall of 1996, and in the spring of 1997 the first Chevrolet Camaro pickup on yellow plates was delivered to the business in Karlslunde. During the same period, a successful plate version of the Lincoln Town Car 'succeeded in getting a true American luxury class airplane. But already in December of that year, letters came from Customs & Tax (SKAT):
'After an overall assessment, the vehicle cannot be approved as intended for the carriage of goods,' the letter stated.
The US Autocenter was given a three-month deadline to settle its trade with the now illegal pickups.
- It was not technically justified. It complied with all the requirements, but when we tried to get an explanation that was in the legislative context, they just said it was too sporty.
- We have never been given a legal, technical justification for why it no longer meets the requirements, says Steen Bruus, who just managed to get a stack of 98 models home before the deadline on March 1, 1998, so that a total of 240 Camaros on yellow plates.
Petty criminals.
Although the Camaro complied with all Danish requirements for a pickup, an illogical breadcrumb in the tax system caused the counter pops to withdraw the permit
- It's really strange, because when the state sits on it, they realize that they lose 400,000 kroner per year. car in charge, but it does not hold.
- If we were to sell them on white plates, we might have sold two of them instead of 240. They actually made a lot of money on them, says Steen Bruus.
- They act like it's their own money, because we feel like they look at us as petty criminals when we stand in there with an application for a car approval. It is a heavy system and unfortunately there is a big difference between whether it is one tax region or the other one is approaching, and often it is crucial which employee is at work the day we come up with the application.